


Contact

by myownspark



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 19th Century, Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Strangers to Lovers, no overt homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 16:28:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13640025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myownspark/pseuds/myownspark
Summary: A short story about two men navigating the wilderness.





	Contact

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta @gettingaphdinlarry, as always, for inspiration, motivation, and celebration.

\- May -

After almost two weeks of searching, Niall has finally caught up with Malik at the fort at Saint Croix, waiting out the rain with a flask of rum at the bar. He is younger than Niall had expected, and drunk. Niall had thought sure Malik would be impressed with the map he has drawn of the North West Company’s fur trade territory, but now, five minutes into a wretchedly one-sided conversation, Niall hopes Malik won’t ask to see the scroll he has tucked under his arm.

“How old are you?” Malik asks with a dismissive squint. He gulps down a shot and pours himself another. 

It’s not the first time Niall’s been asked that question. North West Company had hired him right out of school, and he is well aware of how he stands out among the men at the trading post, with their wiry beards and faces wrinkled and leathery from exposure to sun and wind. Niall is clean shaven, still wearing mostly city clothes, and “pale as snow on bread” according to the Chippewa man who had sold him a skinning knife at the rendezvous in Bixby. He had wanted to sell Niall a salve made of coneflower and honey, too, said it would heal blisters and boils and cool burns. Niall had declined; his hat and a kerchief around his face would suffice. 

Niall doesn’t answer Malik’s question but continues with his pitch, doing his best to seem unbothered. “North West will pay you dearly for your expertise. The Hudson Bay Company is breathing down our necks, truth be told. I can draw the map, but I can’t talk to … our neighbors.” Niall thinks it best not to go into detail about North West’s last surveyor, whom Niall had been hired to replace. The man had gone missing back in April, his compass and rulers still spread out on the table in the Snake River outpost as if he’d just gone to the privy. 

Malik shrugs, bored. He tugs on his short, coal-black beard. “I don’t sign contracts.” Niall thinks he sees a glint of challenge in his eye. Perhaps Malik isn’t as drunk as he’s letting on. 

“North West will pay. Paper money or land. Your choice.”

Niall needs Malik. He’s the best scout in the whole of the territory, Niall was quick to learn, though he doesn’t come unanimously recommended. “Odd, that one,” some said. “Dangerous” was the more pointed description from others. Some thought Malik hailed from the foothills of Kentucky, but one grizzled trapper with connections up north swore he was from Québec. Rumor held Malik had no native wife, though there were guarded, awestruck whispers of a Sioux blood brother who had rescued Malik from drowning. He drank rum, never whiskey, and could speak Sioux as easily as English and French. He was no good at cards, but had a talent for singing. The tallest tale Niall had heard concerned a run-in with a bear from which Malik had narrowly escaped; Malik would display the claw marks she’d left on his shoulder to prove it, it was said, if someone doubted him.

It occurs to Niall then, studying the way Malik spins his glass by its lip so it tips and dances but never falls, that Malik might be the only man in the territory who could find out what happened to the missing surveyor. Or perhaps he already knows. 

Malik seems to find both Niall and his proposition mildly offensive. He makes a sucking sound between his teeth and pours another shot. Their eyes meet briefly before he drinks it down and rises from his stool with a barely discernible nod. Niall can’t tell if Malik is agreeing to terms or merely dismissing him out of hand. As Malik secures his pack over his shoulders and walks toward the door, Niall takes one last chance. 

“North West Post is a mile up Snake River,” he calls, then bites his lip in regret, for surely that’s something Malik knows as well.

If Malik hears him or cares, he gives no sign, and then is gone. 

The crowded room seems much emptier without him in it; Niall gathers his own things with hot cheeks, trying to tamp down the rush in his chest that had started when their eyes made contact.

 

\- June -

Niall lets the axe fall beside the tree stump and removes his wide-brimmed hat. Girl looks on from the late afternoon shadow under the cabin’s porch, panting gently. She seems to be judging him and his tiny pile of unevenly chopped wood. 

“And you can do better?” Niall asks her, wiping the sweat from his face. He winces as the rough cotton of his sleeve scrapes against his forehead, which is burned and peeling. “I doubt it,” he says grumpily.

Girl cocks her head, and it’s enough to melt him. Niall is glad to see she is filling out, and there is a new brightness in her eyes.

He isn’t sure Girl is actually his; her owner is a growly, hunchbacked trapper named Gibbs who passed through the post a week ago to resupply. She would come to him when he whistled, but he was mean, so she’d keep her distance otherwise. When he left, the lean, liver-spotted mutt stayed put. Now she’s “Girl,” and she and Niall have become partners, of sorts, over the days since. She is good at tracking rabbits, not so good at conversation. Nevertheless, along with Niall’s horse, she makes good company at the post. 

It’s been five days since Niall has seen another human soul. Life at the outpost is a loop of lonely routines: waking, washing, hunting, and choring, everything other than what he’s being paid to do. His unfinished map lies open on the table, looking at him accusingly every time he walks by, like a loyal friend who despises being ignored. He misses it too, the mathematics, the measuring, the precision; there is nothing like the pleasure of charting this remote territory with ink on sturdy paper. Trails and streams, forests and lakes, he can fix them all with their names, pin their wildness down in lines and letters. But he can’t do that now, not anymore, until the various tribes dotting the land to the northeast open their ground to be surveyed, and without a scout that’s not likely to happen anytime soon. Malik had been his best hope, but Niall’s attempt at securing his services had gone nowhere. 

Niall lets himself consider Malik for a moment. It isn’t difficult to conjure him. The conflicting rumors, his unreadable accent, his gaze that is both soft and hard, and lastly and most frustratingly, his fingers, longer and more delicate looking than they should be, spinning his shot glass of rum—Niall shakes the memory away and the uneasy feeling in his chest is replaced by a plan to go back to Fort Saint Croix in a few days, where he’ll replenish his supplies and see if he can scare up a new prospect. 

“Thirsty, Girl?” Her tail thumps. Niall dips the wooden ladle into the bucket of cool water he’d brought up from the brook. He lets her drink first, then pours some over his hands that sting with two new blisters. Where had he put those gloves?

He’s about to head inside for them when Girl starts to whine. She stands at attention for a minute, facing the road, her body still except for the twitching tip of her nose. Then Niall hears it, the approaching clop of a horse’s hooves, and above it, a man’s voice singing.

“If Gibbs thinks he’s taking you back, darlin’…” Niall says, following Girl out to the road. But it’s not Gibbs he sees. This is a slim man, young, with a black beard and a tan hide shirt unbuttoned at the neck. Niall reaches up instinctively to smooth his sweaty hair. Malik’s lips hardly move as he sings, but the sound carries clearly through the trees. It’s a simple, lilting French melody that might be a lullaby; Niall can pick out the words “nuit” and “Lune.” 

Girl circles eagerly around Malik’s horse as she barks, a sound that is more welcome than warning. 

“Afternoon,” Niall calls as Malik approaches. 

Malik only gives them his light, inscrutable nod. He steers the mare through the gate and up to the paddock as if he owns the place, and Niall watches dumbly as Malik kicks out of the saddle and ties her to the fence in front of the drink. He loosens the two blanket sacks tied to the pommel and slings them over his shoulder. He is still singing softly as he heads toward the porch door with Girl panting happily at his heels.

“Are you here for … the job?” Niall asks, as soon as his legs start working again.

Malik waits for him to catch up, and they are inside the cabin before he answers. “A bath and a nap, first,” Malik says, putting his packs down on the nearest bench. Niall watches him take in the place, the potbelly stove in the corner, the counter along the wall with the dishes and water bucket, the ladder that leads to the loft. And the map that takes up the better part of the large table in the center of the room. Malik opens one of his sacks and pulls out a wineskin. He looks at Niall plainly as he unscrews its cap and takes a swig.  

Niall feels Malik’s eyes on his face, studying it. He finds himself clearing his throat and shifting on his feet.

Malik hands him the skin wordlessly, and Niall knows before he tastes it that it’s whiskey. There is a tiny, guilty thrill in touching his lips to the place Malik’s have just been. As Malik reaches into his pack again, Niall wonders what else he’s heard about him that might be untrue. His mind lights on a native wife. A blood brother. 

He holds down a burning cough as Malik places a tin on the outstretched map. It’s identical to the one Niall had passed up at Bixby: coneflower salve.

“For your face,” Malik says, and in a moment he is across the room, shirt off, dipping a rag in the water bucket and mopping his chest and underarms. Niall takes another drink. Water runs in tiny rivers down Malik’s back, and when he turns, his chest; around his neck are long cords from which hang a small pouch, a blue bead, and a single curved bear claw.

The directness of Malik’s gaze makes Niall feel as if he’s the one undressed. Niall crosses his arms in some vague pantomime of covering up, and he scrambles for something to say. “Are you hungry?”

“Tired.” Malik lets him go, and turns to the ladder and begins to climb.

“Barracks are … around back …” Niall begins, thinking of the tiny rooms next to the storehouse, just large enough for wash basins and thin pallet beds on the floor. He points weakly in their direction, but Malik stops only long enough to dip his head once, then continues up with eyes half closed. 

The nod could mean “understood” just as easily as “yup, you’re as stupid as I thought you’d be.” In any case, soon Niall is alone with Girl. She looks up at the loft and back at Niall, then trots over to her blanket next to the stove. She lies down with a sigh, as if she can finally relax now that everything is in its proper place. 

“You coming?” Malik’s voice fills the cabin’s quiet. It’s that voice, not the whiskey, that loosens something in Niall’s chest.

 

After, in the morning, Niall can’t stay in the cabin. Even asleep, Malik fills the four walls; his presence is too big, his light snore too loud, reminding Niall with every breath of a certain weight from which he needs to get some distance.

At the brook, Niall’s chest grows warm when he thinks of it, the night under and on top of furs, made of moonlight and sounds and scars that together illuminated an entirely different kind of map, one made of hair and veins, teeth and lips, skin and nails. A map Niall was not to create, but discover.

He should wash up, but he does not; water would rinse away the smell of coneflower and honey and erase the prickle of Malik’s whiskers that Niall can still feel against the inside of his thigh. Water slips into the bucket instead. Their groans and gasps and words repeat, hot in his ears, sounds that make Niall squeeze his eyes shut and smile. He recalls the words Malik had used to call out to that part of him that he wouldn’t let himself see until now. “You’re the same as me.” It was just a whisper, as their arms locked around each other’s waists, and Niall thought as he watched his own stomach rise and fall against Malik’s with their panting breaths, I am, I am the same as you, the same kind of odd, the very same kind of dangerous. 

The sun, warm already, caresses Niall’s shoulder where Malik had smoothed the salve. Suddenly Niall wants to get back there to the loft, to crawl into the little refuge they’ve made, to see Malik’s eyes again, eyes surely too tender to have ever faced down a bear, no matter what his jagged scars seem to say. Niall would like to put the kettle on, wash their clothes, make the creaky loft bed with a clean coverlet for them. 

The cool grass feels good on Niall’s feet as he walks, and the heavy bucket bumps and spills. He begins to hum Malik’s lullaby the best he can remember it, making up the parts he doesn’t.

When Niall reaches the cabin door he is surprised to find it open. Inside Malik sits at the table, staring down at the map with Girl at his feet. He studies it as she chews on a scrap of dried meat. 

“Morning,” Malik says without looking up. 

“Morning.” Niall busies himself with filling the kettle. He likes the gentle clanking and pouring sounds of homemaking. 

“Hey,” Malik says, and Niall turns. Malik is scratching Girl behind her ears, but his eyes draw a leisurely line down the side of Niall’s body, to his hips and up again. The hint of Malik’s smile makes Niall turn fully to him, to let him see.

Malik speaks after a long silence. “Your map’s wrong.” It’s not a criticism, just a fact stated gently.

“I know.” 

Niall doesn’t, actually, know this. He means he knows something else, surely to his bones, something that the moonlight pulled from the darkness so he could see it right before his eyes, that this man will be the one to show him the way through the wilderness.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
